I am a consultant forensic psychologist and manage the multi-systemic therapy (MST) team. It's a new service, providing intensive family and home-based treatment for teenagers. The purpose is to empower the parent or caregiver so that we can make sure the young person doesn't go into prison or into care.

It's very intensive work. The caseloads are tiny, just four families per therapist, working in the school, family home and community, and not in an office. We visit three times a week, and the longest session so far was seven hours. The team is on call 24 hours a day, and through group supervision everyone is aware of everyone else's cases.

We work with families who have a lot of complex needs. So there might be drug or alcohol problems with the parent or young person, violence or arguments at home, or debt. The therapy is very structured, focusing on small targets each week. So we might look at getting a child back to school or improving behaviour. We look at the assessment for why the young person is not getting school, what drives that, and then pick them off one at a time until the behaviour shifts. And the mother does the rewarding and praising so that when we are not there, she can do it again.

We usually work with a family for three to five months - if it is going to work, it will work within that time because the young person will have learned different ways of behaving. It's not magic and it certainly won't work for everyone. But we know that the alternative is prison or care. If we can keep them with their family, and they can be safe and do well, then that is the best outcome.

We get very excited about progress. If you get a child into school who hasn't been for months, it's just so great. Or if a parent implements a safety plan so that they can defuse anger, that is amazing.